So, spent four hours outside today, in the fine Texas cloudshine, moving an improbable quantity of flats, pallets, and various other wood-shaped things. So I'm a bit sore now, but not crippled. That will come tomorrow. As a result of this fine fresh air, I changed color a bit on all my exposed bits.
Yesterday I finished the soldering on the Tesla boards. Might even work! For a change of pace, I put a picture up on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11447071@N04/2338718661/
Yesterday and this morning I built up a nice coil-winding jig with a few neat features:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11447071@N04/2338718647/
The chucks that will hold the tube are Longworth Chucks, made poorly with my brand-new rotozip and it's truly craptastic circle jig. A fix for the circle jig that helped SOME was to give it some friction in its joint by super-gluing 100-grit sandpaper into it. That seemed to help, but the flimsy plastic parts still flexed too much. Anyway, here's a closeup:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11447071@N04/2338718635/
I also rigged a pedometer as a counter, so it will (I hope) count each revolution of the coil form. Automatic winding counter!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11447071@N04/2338718625/
And, with that same rotozip, I made four sticks out of 1" PVC sheet. I started with a truly ineffective edge guide on the 'zip, but then moved over to the jigsaw attachment (which is pretty solid) and a solid bar clamped over the work.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11447071@N04/2338718657/
And finally, the oil lamp thingy (which may or may not dangerously leak oil, I should find out...) from welding class:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11447071@N04/2338730425/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11447071@N04/2338730419/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11447071@N04/2338718651/